Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP FIVE

stay sober. It seems plain that the grace of God will not
enter to expel our destructive obsessions until we are will-
ing to try this.

What are we likely to receive from Step Five? For one
thing, we shall get rid of that terrible sense of isolation
we've always had. Almost without exception, alcoholics
are tortured by loneliness. Even before our drinking got
bad and people began to cut us off, nearly all of us suf-
fered the feeling that we didn't quite belong. Either we
were shy, and dared not draw near others, or we were apt
to be noisy good fellows craving attention and companion-
ship, but never getting it—at least to our way of thinking.
There was always that mysterious barrier we could neither
surmount nor understand. It was as if we were actors on
a stage, suddenly realizing that we did not know a single
line of our parts. That's one reason we loved alcohol too
well. It did let us act extemporaneously. But even Bacchus
boomeranged on us; we were finally struck down and left
in terrified loneliness.

When we reached A.A., and for the first time in our lives
stood among people who seemed to understand, the sense
of belonging was tremendously exciting. We thought the
isolation problem had been solved. But we soon discovered
that while we weren't alone any more in a social sense, we
still suffered many of the old pangs of anxious apartness.
Until we had talked with complete candor of our conflicts,
and had listened to someone else do the same thing, we still
didn't belong. Step Five was the answer. It was the begin-
ning of true kinship with man and God.

This vital Step was also the means by which we began to